(Seoul) North Korea fired a ballistic missile on Thursday, which triggered an alert in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido whose inhabitants were asked to take shelter.
“Evacuate immediately. Evacuate immediately,” the Japanese government ordered in a message, asking Hokkaido residents to take shelter in buildings or underground, and specifying that the missile was due to fall around 8 a.m. local time (7 p.m. Eastern).
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, citing Seoul’s military, earlier reported that North Korea launched an undetermined ballistic missile towards the Sea of Japan.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s office also tweeted that “North Korea has launched what appears to be a ballistic missile.”
North Korea has stepped up weapons tests in recent months, heightening tension with Seoul and Washington, which for their part have strengthened their military cooperation and carried out major joint maneuvers in the region.
On Monday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for increasing his country’s deterrence capabilities to counter “the escalation of maneuvers by US imperialists and treacherous South Korean puppets to unleash a war of aggression according to the official KCNA news agency.
Since March 23, Pyongyang has notably claimed to have carried out three tests of an underwater nuclear attack drone capable of “producing a large-scale radioactive tsunami”.
The regime also said it launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on March 16.
Last year, North Korea declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear power, thus burying any negotiations on the denuclearization of the country.